Or, welcome to my low-maintenance heck.

"What Brian is saying is preposterous. I would never bluff anyone, and I am perfectly peaceful. The beefy guy on the left is on his way to pummel the pure peace of Islam into Brian, just to prove how peaceful I am!"

Shocked? Not me—I said basically the same thing yesterday (see the second paragraph under the large photograph).

You see, to dictatorial regimes, appearance is more important than reality. Internationally, yes, but it's more important internally—to create a picture of governmental strength and resolve which helps to keep the local citizens under the illusion that the ruling regime is undefeatable, and thus discourage any movement to overthrow the dictatorship.

By my theory, Ahmadinejad set up the whole press event for internal publicity, nothing more. I think when we dig deeper, we'll find that there is no operational nuclear capacity there, merely the illusion thereof, created to appease the citizens of the Islamic Revolution, and to keep the mullahs who run the country in power. I'm glad to see, via Allah, some confirmation of this suspicion. I can only hope that I'll continue to be right here—the mere thought of a nuclear mullah-ocracy is definitely unthinkable.